Bangladeshi navy ships search Bay of Bengal for traces of Flight 370

Two Bangladeshi navy ships have begun searching the Bay of Bengal for traces of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, but have yet to find anything, a commander said Friday, according to CNN.

The ships are operating off a tip from an Australian company that claims to have found possible traces of an underwater airplane wreck in the area.

“We haven’t found anything yet, and the frigates will continue the search until they verify all available information,” Commodore Rashed Ali, director of Bangladeshi navy intelligence, told CNN on Friday.

Although Australian officials and other experts have derided the claim, acting Malaysian Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he, too, is considering sending a ship to search — even though he thinks it is “highly unlikely” the plane will be found in the Bay of Bengal.

Hussein said the tip could be confirmed only by sending vessels to the area, which is thousands of kilometers away from the official search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

“But I just want to stress that by doing that, we are distracting ourselves from the main search,” he said Friday. “And in the event that the result from the search is negative, who is going to be responsible for that loss of time?”

His comments came three days after the Australian company GeoResonance publicized its claim that it may have found the wreckage of a plane in the bay.

While GeoResonance said it’s not sure whether the debris is from Flight 370, the company said it has been pressing officials to take a look.